Controlling love

Some Dreams always remain a dream. They are never realized. That might be so because they are forced dreams. Dreams that we make for ourselves and people around us. Enchanted, we wish to create a magical future for ourselves. Similarly: love, they say must not be controlled. Love like art must be free. Love is not something we wind up, something we set or control. Just like art love must be expressed freely. It must take its due, time, and course to be felt intensely. Love is a force that comes into our lives without rules, expectations and limitations. However, when love is forced it becomes painful. When you attach strings like limitations, expectations, and rules to it then it becomes that is definitely not love- a forced marriage which never lasts. Revolutions are like love too. They can’t be conjured or created. They must take their due course and must meet particular criteria to be successful. Romanticizing a revolution might make one feel good, but they seldom have enough depth in them to be successful. Romanticizing is just like closing eyes to ground realities, refusing to change them and pretending that the issues don’t exist which must be fixed for revolutions to be successful. Forced revolutions like that have very less chances of lasting.

 Same was happening in soviet Russia, when communism was booming and talk of a global revolution was lingering. 

The poster shows the image of an African American punching a white guy holding dollars in one hand and a leash in another hand. The picture depicts that blacks have risen up against the slave like conditions they are facing under the capitalist system. The caption in the poster says “payback”. African Americans, the most persecuted and relegated segment of the American society is shown as rising up against the atrocities that they are facing. The African American worker is refusing to accept minimum wages and intends to overthrow the system which is shown in the form of a large building in the background. 

While this might create an appealing image in one’s mind, but according to Mckay, such posters don’t represent the actual situation. Such Poster presuppose and according to those presuppositions Mckay was treated in the congress he was attending. Being an African American from America, a certain behavior was expected home. It was like people expected and wanted him to bash the capitalist regime and talk about the impending American revolution without taking into account the actual condition. Furthermore, the soviet representatives wanted him to talk about the ‘lingering’ revolution and they were not interested in discussing ground realities and facts, which depicts how the classic Soviet Propaganda machine worked. People attending the conference there believed in the presuppositions mentioned afore with their whole heart, which shows how their minds were articulated about the situation outside of the great Soviet Union. Furthermore, the way Mckay was treated at the conference also says a lot. Being the only African American at the conference he was treated like a trophy. He was showcased everywhere, even though he was not attending the conference representing blacks and he did not have any political ambition or goals. He was hastily promoted through the soviet ranks at the congress to be shown to the world at the stage. That was done to prove a point. A point that was well received by the audience. Having a black at the congress sitting among the top elite of the Communist Russia, Mckay was being used as a pawn to color the situation with African Americans red. The situation, however, was not red yet. It was developing but nothing could be said for sure yet. The scales were not tipping in any direction yet, but the story told in the Soviet end of the world said otherwise.